


Little Girl Lost

by Feygan



Category: DCU Animated, Smallville, Supergirl, X-Men (Movies), X-Men: The Animated Series
Genre: Beast having sex seems a little furry, Crossover, F/F, M/M, Rogue gets touchy, Scott and Logan are doing it, Supergirl/X-Men, this is like the naive X-Men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-04
Updated: 2013-02-04
Packaged: 2017-11-28 04:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/670441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feygan/pseuds/Feygan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Little Girl Lost" is the sequel to "Twisted Fairy Tales," furthering the story of Kara In-Ze, a.k.a. Supergirl as she travels the multiverse searching for a place to belong.</p><p>The X-Men universe here is kind of an amalgamation of the X-Men cartoon, the first two movies, and X-Men: Evolution. Rogue is the adult one from the cartoon, you know, the one that wears the bright green one-piece Lycra suit and those little yellow gloves. Her hair might not be as big though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

Alone, she wandered from Earth to Earth, never quite finding one that she wanted to spend any length of time on. None of them felt as welcoming as her Earth, and the sense of not belonging just grew in her with each day that passed.

It had been ten months since she'd left Clark and the world behind. Now she traveled the multiverse as a vagabond, not even in the right time anymore, living through a past she hadn't even been born in yet. It just made her feel even more out of step with the world around her.

Part of her wished that she'd taken Superman's offer and retreated to the supposed safety of Asgard where the last of the Kryptonians lived in their miniature habitat. She could have spent her days with people of her own species and never had to dream of saving the world again. Sure, she'd lose all her super powers, but that wouldn't have mattered as long as she was with her own kind.

Except that it would have mattered. She'd become used to being able to bend steel bars with her bare hands and drill holes through boulders with a glance of her eye. She liked having ice breath and being able to dance on the air with effortless ease. She liked being mostly invulnerable, and she didn't want to live in what largely amounted to a zoo exhibit, not even to be among her "own kind."

She wasn't really happy wandering from world to world with nowhere to settle down and make a life for herself, but she didn't have it in her to stop either, because if she ever just ripped the necklace off her neck and let herself be sucked into Asgard she would kick herself forever. Because she loved having superpowers. She loved being special. And above all, she didn't know how to go back to being a normal person anymore, and she couldn't bear to watch people die in front of her and do nothing to help them.

Stupid Clark and his hero-complex had infected her with the need to try and save the lives around her, even though he'd been mostly miserable in his own life.

All those years watching Superman save the day, then stepping up to the plate and making a name for herself as a superheroine of her own; she had become the responsibility she wore like a cape. She was still only a teenager, and had been Supergirl for barely three years, but she also didn't know how to be merely Kara anymore. Since her arrival on Earth her life had been so wrapped up in playing the part of a savior for humanity that she was unable to let that part of herself go now.

Which was why she was unable to refrain from involving herself in the trouble on the world she had nicknamed Hot Mutant Soup--Home of the Mutant Super People. It wasn't very politically correct, but then again, this version of Earth wasn't exactly a political correctness paradise. Besides, if it came down the line, she knew that the folks of this planet would label her a mutant at the first glimpse of her laser vision or one kick of her jolly red boots.

She'd been traveling incognito on Hot Mutant Soup world, pretending to be as human as Kryptonianly possible, no hint of power anywhere. She had even asked the guy at the deli counter to open her jar of pickles for her, just because she couldn't quite remember how strong she would have been without superpowers.

Unable to completely rid herself of her Supergirl identity, she was wearing a black tee shirt with a silver and white Super-S across the front. Paired with a pair of blue jeans, beat up black boots, a charcoal grey zip front hoodie left open, and a black pleather jacket, she felt almost like herself. Even if no one in this reality knew who Supergirl was, just having the "S" on her shirt made her feel like she was carrying some kind of protective shield around with her.

She could kick ass and take names and no one could hold it against her, because the "S" on her shirt was the warning she gave evil-doers that she was a member of the Super-family. And who cared that Superman and Superboy weren't around to back her up anymore. She could handle herself. She'd been a hero in her own right for three years, and that had to mean something, even if only to herself.

So when she saw three teenaged girls being attacked by a giant robot--which looked like something off a stupid cartoon--she hadn't even hesitated. She wasn't really happy about revealing herself, but there was no way she could not help. Especially when the only offensive capabilities the mutant girls seemed to have was that the Asian looking one was able to throw a handful of sparks. It was pretty pitiful.

Gently nudging her way through the crowd of spectators, once she reached a place where she could stand alone, she leapt up into the air. She ignored the cries of shock she left on the ground behind her.

For the first time since she'd entered Hot Mutant Soup, she felt like herself, and that was a heady sensation. She'd really missed Supergirl.

"Why don't you leave those girls alone, Biggy, and come tangle with me," she taunted. It was part of the superhero handbook that when trying to draw the attention of an enemy it was best to act as sarcastically annoying as possible. Since reading that chapter, she had ceased to be called the "Chipperest Chippy" in the newspapers. Or maybe that had something to do with her threat to castrate Bernie Bernstein with her bare hands. She was never going to know for sure.

The robot turned with an almost painful slowness to face her. Kara really couldn't understand why the girls couldn't have outrun it, it was so slow, but then again, they probably didn't have superspeed. They'd just been lucky enough to be born with a single set of freaky genes. Like that little something was supposed to mean they weren't human anymore.

She really didn't understand human bigotry. Sure, Kryptonians adhered to a strict clan structure, but that didn't mean they killed each other simply because an individual happened to evolve faster than anyone else. Actually, if a trait was useful, Kryptonian scientists might actively try to splice it into the genome.

Even after all her years on Earth, humans were still a mystery to her. She hadn't been like Clark, raised amongst humans since before he could really speak. No, she'd already been thirteen when Superman had rescued her from her lonely sleep, already a teenager. She'd had a life before she'd come to Earth, and a family, no matter that everyone seemed determined to forget that.

Sometimes in her secret thoughts where she wasn't "completely well-adjusted Kara Kent, cousin of Clark Kent," she could feel a little bitter. It was like, the minute she stepped foot on Earth and Clark took her home to his parents she was just supposed to forget the life she'd left behind and become the perfect human girl. She wasn't really allowed to remember that she was an orphan and that her whole society had crumbled into death after a chunk of the mother planet had rebounded off the surface of their moon-colony. She was supposed to play the part of the perfect teenaged girl and fit into the world around her. Never mind that she was a Kryptonian and had never lived a human life before. And just forget about the superpowers that she suddenly and unexpectedly found herself having...

She'd lost her life twice now. First her mother and all the other people on Argo had died, leaving her the only survivor. Then stupid Clark sent her back in time and stranded her in the past where there was no one she knew and everything was different. And she was just supposed to shrug it off and fit in? Well, she was tired of fitting in. She was tired of pretending to be something she wasn't.

Her name was Kara, and she was a Kryptonian female, a breeder of the line of In-Ze. Through her veins flowed the blood of Argonian royalty, and she would not bow down to anyone or anything. No longer would she play the part of the hapless human, hiding her true identity like some shameful secret. That time was past.

With a grimace twisting her face, she gave the giant robot a double punch, crumpling its hard metal casing like paper. There was a burst of sparks from blown circuitry and the monster stumbled on its big stupid feet.

Glancing down at her left hand, she noticed a large white chip across the smooth black coating on her middle fingernail. She lifted her head to glare at the robot. "You big dummy! You chipped my nail polish!"

She threw herself at the robot with a burst of violent speed and set about systematically disassembling it with her fists. She could use her full strength against a robot without fear of killing a living creature. It felt good to let go for once.


	2. Chapter Two

When Jubilee activated the emergency panic button on her wristwatch, the X-Men were sitting down to a quiet dinner. It was a Saturday afternoon and most of the kids were using up day passes in town, or had scuttled off to wherever teenagers went to in the mansion when they wanted to get away from their teachers and the extra homework they could assign. So everything was peaceful and no one was expecting trouble.

Scott was lifting a spoonful of Logan's patented Firebrand Chili to his mouth when the screen of his watch started flashing Emergency Pattern Alpha. Glancing across the table at Logan, he saw that the other man was in the same predicament, which meant that the emergency was real and the lazy weekend was over for the X-Men.

Allowing himself the luxury of a heavy sigh, Scott was still up out of his chair and out of the dining room in time to beat Logan to the hidden elevator.

"You always gotta be first, dontcha, Slick?" Logan growled, but there was fondness in his words.

Scott shot him a sideways grin, then stepped into the elevator when it opened. "Of course. That's why I always get first pick to be on top... and you always come out on the bottom."

He said it quietly enough that the other X-Men probably didn't hear him as they crammed themselves into the elevator. Though he had a pretty good idea that Jean knew what was going on between him and Logan. Sure, the sex part of their relationship was a few days new, but that didn't mean they hadn't had a lot of "tension" between them for awhile. It was just that the two men were actually doing something about it now, which had relieved a lot of the stress in the situation and allowed them to relax a little.

Even Bobby, the definition of obtuseness, had commented on the new relaxed atmosphere. His words had been: "Glad you guys have stopped measuring your lumps against each other and decided to get along." He didn't know how right he'd been, though they were still "measuring their lumps," just in a different way than he imagined.

Just thinking about Logan's "lumps" made Scott shift a bit uncomfortably waiting for the elevator to reach the secret level. He was glad his glasses hid his eyes, because he was pretty sure they were flaming with more than just optic blasts. Damn, Logan was hot.

The minute the elevator door slid open, Scott was out and jogging toward the suit area. He wanted to slip into his skintight leather uniform as fast as possible. If he got dressed first, then he got to watch Logan's ass disappear into his perfectly conforming suit. It was well worth the price of admission.

Pulling open his locker, Scott yanked out his black leather uniform, with the stylized X utility belt. A palm-sized flat disc with a raised X attached to the shoulder of his suit and acted as a communicator.

Sometimes, looking at the uniforms for the X-Men, Scott seriously had to wonder if Xavier was into S&M. Whips and chains would have gone just a little too well with their suits. Either that or the guy really liked seeing teenagers in skintight leather, as though they all had supermodel bodies.

Scott remembered all the years of Jean's crash dieting and it still made him mad at Charles. Because of these stupid uniforms Jean had ping-ponged up and down the weight scale, obsessing about every single pound she gained or lost. The uniforms for the female members of the X-Men were part of the reason why Scott had finally declared his relationship with Jean over. He just couldn't be a part of her psychosis anymore.

One day she would be completely in love with herself, but the next she would be tearing up her clothes and scratching long furrows in her skin with her vampy red painted nails. It had freaked him out, and he'd quickly gotten tired of being her audience, especially since she wouldn't let him stop her from hurting herself. She would telekinetically hold him at a distance while she screamed and cursed at her reflection and punched and kicked holes in their bedroom walls. It had gotten tired real fast.

Logan wasn't like that. Logan was laid back about a lot of things and was basically just a jeans and flannel kind of guy. Scott might not have liked the flannel so much, but at least Logan didn't go bugshit after he ate a hamburger and obsess about gaining half an ounce. Besides, Scott got more sex with Logan than he ever had with Jean, who was so focused on herself sometimes that the rest of the world could have disappeared completely.

It wasn't like Scott needed to stay with Jean for the kids or anything. Cable, Nate, and however many other people carrying their genetic material around, were pretty much beyond the need for close parental guidance. It was actually a little freaky to come across someone that's supposed to be your son, but have them be older than you.

Scott had given up on the idea of kids. It just never seemed to work out to a happy ending. And at least with Logan he got to snuggle up to someone warm at night, not a cold fish that was constantly either pushing him away or clinging to him like a limpet.

Jean had so many mental hang ups that it was a wonder she didn't implode. Besides, Scott had always had the sneaking suspicion that she had feelings for Charles Xavier that might have been a bit more than a crush.

The thought of Jean writhing around on a bed with Charles was just too creepy. He thought of Charles like a father, and Jean... well, he'd almost married her, and had married her replacement clone, which was just a whole 'nother realm or weird. All of it was just so disturbing and he didn't want to think about how much his life resembled a badly crafted soap opera, with evil twins, kidnapped children, badly crafted villain babble, and illicit sex happening all over the place.

He just wanted to go out there and help save the world. He didn't want to think about the strangeness of the life he lived.

Slipping his uniform jacket on, he grabbed his visor and traded it for his everyday glasses. It was time to get down to business, which meant leaving Scott Summers and his troubles behind while he went out as Cyclops. It felt almost good to be able to let go of his everyday self, and it wasn't like he was just ignoring his problems or anything. He was shelving them for later when he would have the time to really concentrate his attention on them with no distractions.

Snorting a little at his own self-delusions, he slammed his locker shut and turned to face the rest of the team. "All right, here's how it's going to go. I'll take Wolverine, Jean, Storm and Rogue with me to retrieve the girls and find out what had Jubilee so panicked. Beast and Iceman, you two stay here and try to track down all the day passers and make sure none of the kids that were supposed to stay on school grounds didn't sneak off. Let's do this."

"Hoo-ha!" Bobby barked with an irrepressible grin. He was still such a child at times.

When Scott was twenty-three, he could remember being bowed down by the responsibilities the Professor had bestowed upon him. He'd been so wrapped up in the team that the rest of his life had almost completely passed him by, and he hadn't missed it. Sometimes he could almost be jealous of Bobby and his lack of worries, but then he'd think about how much of a knucklehead Bobby was and shudder away from the thought of ever living such an empty-headed life.

"If the Professor was here, I would have him scanning for the kids," Scott said to Jean as they headed toward the landing pad and the waiting Blackbird.

Jean made a tsking sound. "You're always making plans with Charles at their center. When are you ever going to think for yourself?"

Scott masked a sudden flare of hurt and gave her smug face a quick glance out of the corner of his eye. There were times he was glad for the mental shields Xavier had taught him to erect and for the latent gift of empathy that allowed him to guard himself against most psychic readings. He didn't want Jean to know that she'd scored a hit with her bitchy little comment. Sometimes he really couldn't stand his dependence on Xavier and really had to wonder if he could stand on his own feet.

"You ever notice how Q-ball ain't ever around when you really need him?" Logan drawled from behind them. "Sure, whenever he needs us, we're there to help him out. But when things are on the other foot... he's off at a conference or traveling the cosmos with his alien girlfriend. It's weird, ain't it?"

Scott didn't quite flash the other man a grateful glance, but when they clambered aboard the Blackbird he did manage to brush his ungloved hand against Logan's sleeve.

The Wolverine flashed him a toothy smile, and he felt heat go right through him.

* * *

"Those three are at it again," Storm observed.

Rogue snorted, an indelicate sound. "Ah am so tired o' all their posturin's. If it was up ta me, they would nevah be in the same room with each othah evah again... 'cept maybe for Scott and Logan, and that only 'cause they're having sex like ya wouldn't believe."

"What do you mean?" Storm turned her head to look at the other woman curiously.

Rogue colored a little, but met those interested eyes head on. "Ah heard 'em goin' at it in the equipment room. It was lahk two wild animals in a burlap sack. Got me hot just listenin' ta it. Ah had ta go back to mah room and get out my vibratin' friend, if ya know what Ah mean."

Storm smirked. "I do indeed." She looked toward the front of the plane at where Scott and Logan were seated in the pilot and co-pilot chair, with an angry Jean strapped down in the seat right behind them. "Do you think they really believe that we don't know what is going on between them?"

"They're men, sugah. Their idea of subtle is to have one o' 'em leave the dinnah table five minutes aftah the othah, lahk we don' know what they're gonna do once they get a little privacy. They really don' think we know what's goin' on between 'em, and that's good enough, 'cause that means there's more chance o' catchin' 'em in the act and getting' a full visual."

Storm slapped her lightly on the arm. "You are so bad."

"Ah know." She grinned.

* * *

"I don't know why we always have to stay behind and handle the kids," Bobby complained.

Beast gave him a close-mouthed smile and pushed his glasses further up his face. His inhuman appearance meant that he couldn't wear normal eyeglasses anymore, which meant pinchy straps behind his head. "We got left behind because they don't need us on this mission. Scott didn't want to take the whole team and find out that Jubilee was making a false alarm. Besides, we have to make sure all the children are well, because this is a school and it's kind of important that we have at least a few living students to teach."

Bobby rolled his eyes. "I still don't know why he doesn't make... um... Storm stay behind, or Wolverine."

Beast gave him a disbelieving look. "You're joking, aren't you? Scott ever leave Logan behind?"

Bobby sighed. "Yeah, you're right. Once they started fucking, it was like they were glued together at the hip. It's almost embarrassing to watch."

Beast reached out and ran a hand across the smooth skin of Bobby's cheek. His hands were shaped more like an animal's paw than a man's hand, the backs of them covered in fur, while his palms and fingertips had rough pads for traction. The rasping sound of the pads on his left hand brushing across Bobby's tender flesh was oddly arousing. Beast could feel his penis slip slightly from its sheath, tender pink bulb barely poking out, though no one would notice through the crude canvas trousers he wore.

Bobby's nostrils flared and a secret light sparked in the depths of his eyes. "Later," he said, his voice low, just for them. "We have work to do."

"Yes, later," Beast growled.

Bobby's hand rose to hold Beast's against his cheek for a moment, his fingers brushing lightly through the fur. Then he let go and they got back to the job at hand--went back to being members of the X-Men.


	3. Chapter Three

"Wow, that is fucking incredible."

"I know. I've never seen anything like that, and I've seen Rogue punch a hole through a car door when she was mad."

Jubilee looked at her two friends and shrugged her shoulders. "It's nothing new. She's just another mutant... like us. There's nothing special about her."

"Are you fucking insane?" Taz asked, turning to her, though her eyes kept straying back to the sight of the blond woman kicking the Sentinel's ass. "She can fly. She's super strong. She... she had lasers shooting out of her eyes. She blew on the Sentinel's arm and froze it, then snapped its arm off at the shoulder. She's like... she's like Scott, Rogue and Storm all in one. She's amazing. Most of all, she saved us, and she really didn't have to, since the Sentinel hadn't even targeted her. She's my hero!"

Jubilee crossed her arms tight over her chest. "Doesn't matter. She's nothing that big."

Taz looked at Danielle and they both rolled their eyes before focusing back on the girl kicking the crap out of the Sentinel scourge.

Jubilee hated herself for feeling so jealous, but she was.

She'd been training for months to earn her spot on the X-Men, but the first time she went up against a Sentinel, she couldn't even save her friends. With that giant hand coming down toward them, she'd pretty much known they were doomed. They were going to wake up in a big laboratory somewhere or they weren't even going to wake up at all, and it was all her fault because her mutant gift wasn't strong enough to stop that robo-freak.

Then blondie had shown up. She'd just appeared out of nowhere and started crunching metal like it was nothing. Jubilee had felt so helpless, yet that girl was kicking ass without even really trying, and it just wasn't fair!

Why the hell did she even have a mutant power if it was going to be something so lame? Why couldn't she have been super strong or fast? Why couldn't she have the destructive force necessary to protect herself and her friends? Why did she have to be so nearly human, but with sparks shooting out of her fingertips? It... it wasn't fair. She wanted to be stronger than she was. She wanted to have the ability to save the people that she cared about. She didn't want to be another helpless victim waiting to be scooped up by Sentinels scanning for the X-gene.

What was the point of being a mutant if her big ability was to just be able to die?

Sure, she wasn't as helpless as some of the mutants out there, the ones that had purely physical changes that branded them as freaks without helping them one bit. But she wasn't as strong and fierce as mutants like Magneto or Storm or Cyclops either. She was just a girl with a bit of something extra, but not enough to make her ever feel completely safe.

Watching the blond girl take the Sentinel apart piece by piece, she burned with a jealous rage that she was never going to be so strong. She was never going to fly.

* * *

Kara was having fun. For the first time in a long time, she was able to just let out all of her rage and anger, and once it was gone and only Kara was left behind, she could enjoy the visceral pleasure of letting go of her physical inhibitions.

Whenever she was around humans, she always had to be so careful that she didn't hurt them. But when she faced rogue Kryptonians, alien scourges, or even giant robots, she was able to fully be herself, and it was a freedom she had sorely missed.

With a hard wrench and a grunt of effort, she twisted the robot's head off its shoulders and crumpled it between her fists like a giant soda can.

It felt good to crush her enemies. She didn't get to do it very often, since she mostly stopped humanlike bad guys. But it still felt good.

Just as the robot was collapsing to the ground, there was a whistling, whooshing sound from behind her.

Kara whirled around and watched in shock as five more giant robots came flying at her through the clouds.

"What the hell are you guys?" she asked. Knowing a fight was coming, she cracked her knuckles and put herself into a state of readiness. With multiple enemies, she wasn't going to play with them as she had the first robot. Now was a time for concentrated violence and an easy ass whipping.

As the robots landed on the ground in a circle around her, Kara slipped off her pleather jacket and hoodie, dropping them toward the street below. She wanted to have her arms free, and besides, it wasn't like she needed to pretend a need for warmth anymore. Her Kryptonian body didn't feel the cold like a human's did, not with the Earth's yellow sun to recharge her batteries. It was one of the best things about being solar powered.

With a blazing grin, Kara rested her fists on her hips and took on the patented "superhero" stance. "Well, whatever you are, you've made a grave mistake today by bothering those girls. I may not get on my soapbox often, but I'm there right now, and you're gonna pay for putting me there."

"Identify yourself, mutant," the lead robot said in a rumbling deep mechanical voice.

Kara laughed. "It's been awhile since I've been anywhere where I wasn't immediately recognizable as a member of the Super family, but this is a whole new world, isn't it? My name is Kara In-Ze. I am Supergirl." She tipped herself backward and zoomed forward to slam boot first into the lead robot. There was a crunch and squeal of torn metal as she ripped through its head and popped out the other side. The robot collapsed to its knees then face forward into the ground. "Oh yeah, and I'm not a mutant. I'm a Kryptonian."

It felt good to declare her identity with pride. She didn't have to hide who she was here, because there was no Kent family to protect and Clark wasn't here to have his secret identity revealed.

For the first time in a long time she was free to be herself.

"I'm in the mood to play," she purred, her Kryptonian battle-spirit rising.

Sure, Kryptonians weren't quite the conquerors that some of their detractors might have called them, but they didn't leave enemies behind them either. They were a warrior race that had settled into peaceful rule of their empire, but they held the memory of what they once were in their veins.

Now filled with the fire of battle, she felt completely alive.

She gave a Xena-esque "Yiyiyiyiyiyiyiyi!" yelping-yell and sent herself flipping through the air, slamming her fists and feet into the robots.

When there was the whooshing sound of more robots appearing, her grin only got fiercer. She was having fun!

* * *

Hovering the Blackbird over the Sentinels, Scott held it steady as Storm and Rogue leaped out the hatch to join the battle below.

"There's a clear spot on the roof of that building right there," Logan said, pointing.

Scott flashed him a smile. "Thanks." The building also had a good line of fire for his optic blasts, an added bonus. Logan had probably already seen that.

Landing the Blackbird on the roof of the building looked childishly simple, but it involved lots of miniature maneuvering to get it down without knocking over a chimney or sliding over the edge. No one ever told him he did a good job landing the plane, but Scott took pride in the fact that he had never crashed it. Sure, they'd been shot down a few times, or they'd had their engine ripped out in mid-flight once, but that had nothing to do with his flying skills, which were excellent.

"All right, we're down," he said, switching off the engine and unstrapping himself.

"Meet you on the outside, slick," Logan said, thumping his shoulder before making toward the hatch.

"Where do you want me?" Jean asked, taking her time in releasing her own seatbelt.

Scott shrugged. "You can stand by me. I'll aim bursts at the Sentinels and protect you while you use your telekinesis to rip the insides out of 'em."

"Sounds like a plan," she said.

He followed her out of the plane and took up a position near the edge of the building.

When he was younger, he used to have a fear of heights. Charles had forced him to overcome it, slipping into his mind and clipping the fear right out of his brain. Sometimes he wondered what else Charles had taken out of him, but then he'd dismiss those thoughts as paranoia. Charles Xavier was like a father to him, and there was no way Charles would ever let his ideals overcome his simple human decency. No way.

"Wow, she's amazing," Jean murmured.

Scott grunted in agreement, watching the slender blond girl crush metal in her bare fists. She looked like a Barbie doll, but she fought like a dream. He had to wonder what side she was on and whether she was open for recruitment. They could really use someone like that on their team.

Raising his left hand to the side of his visor, he aimed an optic blast right through the nearest Sentinel's right eye, burning out its brain. It fell with a ground-shaking thud.

The girl turned to look at him, a surprised look forming on her face for a moment. "Who are you?" she called.

"Friends," Scott yelled back.

She looked like she wasn't going to believe him for a moment, then she shrugged and smirked. "Whatever. You didn't really need to join my fun, but since you're here now... don't get in my way." With that she spun around in midair like a ballerina, going faster and faster and faster until she was just a blur of motion, then disappeared into the rising funnel of air.

The fast moving funnel leapt across the intervening space to engulf two of the Sentinels. There was a tumble and crunch, then shattered pieces of metal and plastic were raining down to litter the sidewalk and street. The Sentinels were ground together like G.I. Joes in a blender, and when she was done, there was nothing left of them but parts.

As soon as there were no more pieces of Sentinel in her tornado she stopped spinning. For a moment, she stood framed against the light, her back straight and her beauty inhuman in its perfection, poised on the air as though it were solid ground. Then she bent her body in a snapping dive and slammed into another Sentinel doubled-up fists first, hitting with such force that it just shattered into pieces.

She was an awesome force of destruction.

* * *

Rogue and Storm took a moment to assess the situation before they each chose their targets and attacked. They didn't have to discuss what they were going to do; they just did it. Years of training--hard work since they were barely teenagers--had gone into making them the people they were today.

Sometimes Rogue remembered the girl that used to be Marie, and when she did she had to wonder what exactly it was she had become. It wasn't like she woke up every morning with a smile on her face. Sure, she was kind of, maybe, content with her life, but she couldn't really be completely certain, because she'd never had a real chance to live any other way.

The luck of the draw had given her kind of a raw deal in the mutation department. There were people out there cursed with even worse mutations, ones so horrific that they never had a chance to make any kind of life for themselves, but her mutation wasn't a happy one either. Never being able to touch another living creature with her bare skin didn't seem so bad at first glance, but it was a wearing kind of misery that just grew and grew with each passing year that she had to cringe away from the human contact she wanted so badly.

A part of her cried out for the comfort of a simple hug, a kiss on her forehead, but it was never going to happen again, not without a layer of cloth between her and the rest of the world. And that layer didn't exist to protect her, but to save other people from coming into contact with her, because she held death in her very being.

She had nightmares where she was trapped in a crowd of people, and no matter how small she held herself, they kept brushing against her and dying. She would suck their lives out of their skin, and even as they withered away to nothing, she could still hear their horrible screams, begging and wailing, haunting her sleep, forcing her to remember them even when all she wanted to do was forget.

It hurt her to know that the ability to fly that she loved so well wasn't her own, it was just another stolen life. She had as good as killed Ms. Marvel when she sucked the power out of her and put her into a forever coma. She hadn't even had the grace to just kill the woman, and it tormented her.

She could fly and was stronger than a normal human would ever be. She could protect herself from anyone that wanted to hurt her. Mere bullets only bruised her skin. Humans couldn't hurt her anymore, and she wished that she could give it back. Because her mutation, which allowed her to absorb the life and skills of any human or mutant she touched meant that in the end, she didn't even know if she could classify herself as a member of either race. She was a monster, and it should have bothered her even more than it did.

Because it was only when she thought of Marie that she realized what she was and what she was losing with each passing year. The rest of the time, she was stuck in the now, living every single day, thinking no further than the moment, and consequences and repercussions had no room in her mind.

It was only when she thought about how much of Marie she had lost that she considered herself a monster. The rest of the time, it didn't even seem to matter, and hadn't since she'd joined the X-Men and taken Professor Charles Xavier's ideals as her own.

She longed for human contact, but since that was never going to happen, she contented herself with focusing her entire life force on the mission the X-Men lived for. She put all of herself into Xavier's dream of a better life for mutant kind and a world where humans and mutants could stand side-by-side as one. Fighting for that dream was her human contact, and it had to be enough for her, the untouchable woman.

.

Throwing herself into the fight against the Sentinels, she pushed away all other thoughts or concerns. She needed to focus on the task at hand and not let herself be distracted by things she could not change.

Without a single twinge of conscience, she pushed away everything that was Marie and completely became Rogue of the X-Men. Now was not a time to be anything like human.

With a roar of effort, she slammed full force into one of the Sentinels, punching and punching until she thought her arms were going to fall off. Metal bent under her punches until she finally managed to make a hole big enough for her hand and arm to fit through to reach in and pull out a double handful of wires and circuit boards.

There was a flare of sparks and the heavy smell of burning machinery.

Rogue drifted backwards in the air to watch the Sentinel collapse with a loud thud to the ground. It didn't get back up.

She was so busy watching her first enemy fall that she didn't see the large fist swing down and hit her, knocking her through the air. Her voice rose in a surprised scream as she tumbled across twenty feet of intervening space to slam hard into an entirely too human-shaped object.

For a moment she thought she had run into Storm. And sure, Storm was tough, but she was only humanly strong and could be hurt or killed just like anyone else. Then they were hitting the ground hard, the woman she'd landed against hitting first with Rogue on top.

"You all right?" an unfamiliar voice asked.

Rogue twisted her head around and saw that she'd hit the strange blond girl that had been fighting the Sentinels by herself. The girl didn't seem to be in any pain at all, not a single bruise marring the perfection of her skin. Her clothes weren't even mussed, much less torn, which had to be the result of some strange mutant power, because there was no way that was normal.

"Ah'm..." Rogue had to pause and clear her throat before she could continue. "Ah'm all right. How are ya? Did Ah hurt ya?" She rolled off the girl and sat up, trying to see whether any harm had been done to the girl.

"I'm fine, nothing I haven't been hit with before," the girl said, standing up in one smooth motion. She turned and reached down to grab Rogue's upper arm, pulling her up. "There you go. We better get back into the fight." She rose up off the ground and zoomed off back into the fray.

Rogue just stood there for an immeasurable length of time staring after the girl, barely seeing anything at all through blurry eyes. Her mind was trapped on one thing and one thing only.

When the Sentinel had hit her, the sleeve had somehow been torn off her uniform. Her right arm was completely exposed. The girl had gripped Rogue's bare arm for a couple of seconds at least with no affect whatsoever. Rogue hadn't felt any kind of power absorption at all.

Staring at the girl, Rogue didn't quite know what to do. All she knew was that for the first time in years someone had touched her and been completely unharmed by the contact.

She had been touched.


	4. Chapter Four

Twenty-six Sentinels, that was the final count. With shattered, broken parts spread all over the ground, it might have looked like more, but it had been twenty-six. More than the X-Men could have handled alone.

Scott hated to admit the fallacy of human flesh, but he had to face the reality of the situation. The X-Men were not gods. They could be hurt or even killed just like everyone else.

He couldn't even count the number of times he had been knocked out and captured. It was part of the life of an X-Man, to wake up somewhere with no memory of how you got there and have crazy people come and take your genetic material to create clones and breed their own version of a master race.

No human should ever have to live through some of the things he had, but there was nothing he could do about it and no other life he was prepared to live. Since he was a child he had been raised to be a hero, so here he was now and he didn't know how to be anything other than Scott Summers a.k.a. Cyclops of the X-Men, team leader.

With the Sentinels on the ground and no more arriving, Scott deemed it safe to lead Jean down to the street.

Logan stood waiting for him next to Storm, while Rogue was by herself, just staring at the strange girl with this look on her face, one he couldn't even recognize. Jubilee, Danielle and Taz were in a huddle near Storm, taking comfort in the presence of their teacher.

"You guys all right?" Scott asked, purposely softening his voice. The girls were stressed out enough, they didn't need him adding to their future mental problems.

"We're fine, Mr. Summers," Taz said. "That girl saved us."

"She was great!" Danielle added with a burst of enthusiasm. "It was all POW! BANG! Whoop! Sha-SHING! Then parts were flying everywhere. The Sentinels didn't even get a chance to touch us."

Jubilee's fists were clenched hard at her sides, but she didn't say anything. She didn't need to; her face said it all.

Scott had known for awhile that Jubilee was a bit jealous of those with stronger powers than her. The girl was desperate for strength, but there was a good chance she was never going to have it. Sure, she had plasma bursts that could burn flesh and maybe even kill if used right, and she could short out electrical systems, but that was basically it. She was never going to be bringing down mountains, not even when her powers were at their strongest.

"I've gotta go..." Scott jerked a thumb toward where the blond girl stood, hands on her hips, surveying the damage with an eerie kind of contentment. "You stay with Storm in case more trouble decides to show up."

"Yes sir, mon Capitaine," Taz called, giving a snappy salute and clicking her heels together.

Scott shook an admonishing finger at her, then started walking toward the blond girl. He didn't look back to see Logan following him, but he felt the comfort of that presence close behind him, the warmth and comfort of knowing that he wasn't alone. Jean had never been there for him like that, though she had depended on him to take care of her, needing his strength to support her flagging ego.

"Hello," he said, stopping a few feet in front of the girl. He knew that if she wanted she could tear him to pieces in a second, but the distance between them was more a comfort for him than a reality of safety.

Her blue eyes ran him over from head to toe then back up again. A faint smile curved her dark rose lips. "Hello yourself. I guess you're one of the local heroes, you and your gang, out trying to save humanity and make the world a better place. It's fun while it lasts, but no matter how strong you are, there's always someone out there stronger than you, and that's something you've always gotta remember. Every superhero has a supervillain enemy, even if they have to create that enemy themselves. Like Batman and the Joker, or Superman and Lex Luthor, or even Rocky and Bullwinkle." She snickered, "Okay, so Rocky and Bullwinkle are more like gay animals that hang out together, but they've still gotta face down Boris and Natasha, so that's gotta mean something."

Scott gave her a confused look. "Excuse me?"

She shook her head. "Never mind, it's just stupid babble. If you're by yourself too long you go a little bit crazy and every thought in your head pops out your mouth. My name's Kara, what's yours?"

"Cyclops..." He stopped and looked at her. "Scott. You can call me Scott."

"Ooh, am I one of the lucky few that gets to call you by your non-superhero name?"

"Why do you keep calling me that? Sure, I'm a member of the X-Men and we try to help mutants and humans, but that doesn't mean we're superheroes," he said.

"Sure it does," she said. "You guys have code names, you dress up in costumes and you go out every day to save the world. You're superheroes, and about the only thing that would make it more obvious would be if you were sporting tights and a cape. Take it from me, I know superheroes, and I have a one-hundred-percent accuracy rating in recognizing them on sight. Kind of comes with the job, you know."

"No, I don't know. Who are you?" Scott asked. "You're strong and fast and you have all these powers... so why haven't we heard about you before? The way you talk, it's like you have this reputation that you think I should know about, but I've never heard of you before. Who are you, and where did you come from?"

Kara shrugged like it didn't matter, but he knew that it did. She was missing her old life and didn't believe that she was ever going to have it back again. "A galaxy far, far away and a future that's never going to happen."

"You're from the future?" he asked. A horrible thought struck him. He leaned closer and lowered his voice a little. "You're not my daughter, are you?"

Kara raised an eyebrow. "No, but thanks for asking." She cocked her head and gave him a sharp look. "You've had some really serious stuff happen to you, haven't you? Mind-warping kinds of things, stuff that I wouldn't even want to hear about, much less live through."

"Yeah, shit happens," he said without thinking, then covered his mouth with his fingers. She was just a kid and he tried not to curse in front of his students.

She laughed. "I like you, you know that? You're my kind of hero, and that's saying a lot. Cousin Clark could kick ass in a fight, but he lived the rest of his life like a pansy. Mild-mannered reporter..." Kara shook her head. "Sometimes I got frustrated with his life, you know, that whole double-standard secret identity thing. I don't know how he lasted so long with the lies. You'd think they would have melted a hole through his yellow underwear, except he was all invulnerable and everything." She shrugged expressively.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Scott said.

"I know, and it doesn't really matter. Clark and every other part of my old life are a long time gone and they're never coming back. I'm the only thing left."

"That's sad," Jean said, appearing at Scott's elbow. She was looking at the girl with this perplexed expression on her face, like she had lost something and couldn't remember what it was.

Kara glanced at Jean with a knowing look. A little smirk twisted the corners of her mouth. "You're trying to Read me, aren't you? But to you, I'm not even really here, am I?"

"You're here, you're just really good at Shielding yourself," Jean said. She was playing it cool, but Scott had known her long enough to recognize the frustration she was barely holding in check. If there was one thing a telepath hated, it was a psychic blank. They got so used to being able to just walk into peoples' heads whenever they wanted that when they were blocked it just about drove them crazy.

"You should just stop trying to Read me before you give yourself an aneurysm or something. My mind is not for you," Kara said. "Sometimes, it's not even for me." She sounded sad when she said the last part.

"You saved three of our students today, Kara," Scott said. "That means a lot to us. If you're willing to save lives, then maybe... well, there might be a spot for you in the X-Men. We could always use the help."

"You don't even know me," Kara said. There was something so sad about her suddenly, a loneliness borne of the loss of people she cared about and loved. "You're going to trust me around your 'students,' and you don't even know where I've come from or who I am. For all you know, I might have tangled with those robot guys just for the hell of it, because I've got a yen for violence. I might be a mass murderer just waiting for the chance to strike again."

Scott shrugged. "Sure, that's always possible. But from where I'm standing and what I can see in your eyes, you look like you're searching for a place to belong, and maybe that's what we've got to offer you. You don't have to be alone anymore. We're not going to force you to stay, but why don't you come back with us and see if there might be a place for you in the X-Men. You know, fighting the good fight and all."

Kara stared at him for a long moment, then she threw her head back and laughed. "I feel like I've just run across the Justice League, or..." she glanced around, her eyes taking in the other members of the X-Men, "maybe you're the Teen Titans gone a little old. Still," she nodded her head, "I'll go with you and spend a few nights at your secret base. You can try your spiel on me while I eat your food and have a place to sleep, and hell, maybe I'll stay, though it's a better bet that I'll be off for greener pastures. Anyway, I'm not going to cause you any trouble. I'm not a mass murderer... I just play one on TV," her voice lowered to a whisper, like it was a secret.

Scott jerked his head back toward the building the Blackbird rested on. "Come on, we should be out of here before the cops finally show up."

Kara looked around. "They are taking their time, aren't they?"

"Yeah, mutants being scooped up by Sentinels isn't really something the police want to get involved with. It's not like we're human or anything." Scott was almost surprised by how bitter he sounded.

Logan, who so far had been an unobtrusive presence behind him, rested a hand on his shoulder. "It's all right, slick."

Scott surreptitiously pressed back into the touch before pulling away. "Come on," he said, starting to walk toward the building.

Kara moved up beside him, while Logan walked on his other side. Jean jogged up ahead to grab the others. She hated not being the center of attention, though she wasn't going to complain about it where other people could hear. She didn't want to be labeled a spoiled brat, not again anyway. Once from Logan was enough.

As they were walking away, Scott asked the question that had been bothering him. "Who are Batman and Superman?"


	5. Chapter Five

Rogue didn't know what to say to the girl seated across the aisle from her aboard the Blackbird. The touch of that hand burned against her skin, completely addling her mind. It had been so long since she'd had any real kind of physical contact. Most people that knew her mutation were too scared to get any closer to her than they had to.

She'd grown used to being alone, but that didn't mean she liked it. She missed the warmth of human flesh, the comfort of knowing that she wasn't moving alone through the world.

For a brief moment the blond girl, Kara, had touched her arm. The flesh where that hand had rested burned with the pleasure of contact. It had felt as though the entire course of her life had been changed forever by that touch.

"What's up?"

Rogue jumped at the sound of that voice and shyly met the blue eyes looking at her. "Sorry... sorry..." she stuttered.

Kara shook her head. "It's no big. I was just wondering why you were staring. Do I have something on my face?"

"No, no, o' course not. Ah just..." She didn't know how to go on.

How was she supposed to tell someone that she had the power to suck the very life out of a person, and that they were the first and only person she had safely been able to touch since her mutation had manifested? It just wasn't the kind of thing that ever came up in casual conversation and she had never had the opportunity to say the words. Kara was the only one.

"Hey, if you don't like the look of my face, you don't have to worry. I'm probably not going to be around you lot for very long," Kara said.

Rogue hurriedly shook her head. "No, that's not it!" She drew in a deep breath, scrubbing a hand across her cheek. "Ah just... it's been so long since anyone has actually touched me."

"What do you mean?" Kara asked, compassion already beginning to shine in her eyes.

Rogue bit her lip for a second to get up her courage. "Mah mutation is in mah skin. If anyone touches me directly, Ah can't help but to absorb whatevah powers or skills they have, and if Ah hold on long enough the absorption is permanent. There's no one in the world Ah can safely touch."

"That's a very lonely way to live, but what does that have to do with me?" Kara asked curiously.

"Ya grabbed mah arm," Rogue said, her hand drifted up to trail her fingers over the spot where Kara's presence still lingered on her flesh. "Ya held mah arm and ya didn't get the life sucked out of ya. Mah touch didn't do anything to ya at all. You're the first person since my power manifested that has been able to safely touch me."

Kara looked a little disconcerted for a moment, then shrugged. "Maybe your power only works on Earth-based creatures. My genome originated on Krypton, not to mention all of the designer gene-structures that have been added over time to better our race."

"You're really an alien?" Rogue asked.

Kara nodded her head. "Yes."

"Cool."

* * *

Kara couldn't remember the last time her confession of being an alien entity had earned such a little return. Rogue was positively casual about it, as though it didn't really matter that Kara wasn't human and never had been.

"Run into many aliens, have you?" Kara said.

"A few."

"I've met a few other races myself," Kara said. "It's never as surprising as you always kind of think it should be."

"Yeah, they all look too human to be aliens," Rogue nodded.

They looked at each other, their eyes meeting across the aisle. There was something almost familiar between them, though Kara couldn't explain what it was. She opened her mouth to say something, but...

"Hey, what are you two talking about back here?" the moment was gone.

Kara looked at the man in his tight leather outfit and was almost angry at the interruption, though she didn't even know why. She tried a charming smile on him, though it probably didn't touch her eyes.

"Nothing much, just introducing ourselves," she said.

Rogue shot her a quick grateful look.

"That's Wolverine," Rogue said. "Logan." She gave him a sideways smile, though her eyes quickly drifted back to Kara, not wanting to miss a moment. "He thinks he's mah big brothah or something and is always tryin' to look aftah me, even though Ah'm an adult. Don't take it personally if he decides to grill ya like a chicken."

"Ooh, chicken," one of the teenaged girls squealed. "I am, like, so hungry. Can we pull through a drive-thru or something, please, Mr. Summers?"

Cyclops looked back from his perch at the jet's controls. "I don't think so, Danielle," he said. His tone was so dry, but there was definitely a slight, amused quirk to his lips.

"Wait until we get back to the mansion," Jean said. "It's going to be dinnertime soon anyway, but I'm sure you can have a little snack. If you're good."

Danielle groaned and leaned against Taz's shoulder. "I'm freakin' starving here."

Taz wrapped an arm around her friend's shoulder. "Calm down a little. When we get back, we'll eat like ten peoples' worth of food."

"But I'm hungry now," the girl whined.

"Here, shut up," Jubilee growled, tossing a Snickers bar at her.

Danielle didn't look too happy at being told to shut up, but she shrugged and tore the wrapper open. "Thanks."

"Whatever." Jubilee still sounded disgruntled about her earlier failure at fighting Sentinels.

Kara looked at the girl from the corners of her eyes and wondered what crawled up her butt and died. Finally she shrugged and figured that she didn't really care.

Even though she was still a teenager herself, Kara wasn't much interested in teenaged angst. That was the hardest part about playing Kara Kent... she had to be a teenager surrounded by other teenagers, hiding her intellect behind a rather bland Valley Girl mentality. It got old real fast.

She didn't want to deal with the Asian girl's problems. She had too many of her own right now.

* * *

"Come on, man, stop it," Bobby mock-whined, leaning into the touch despite his protests.

Beast grinned, showing a set of monstrous teeth. He stroked his hand against the side of Bobby's face, the pads on his fingertips and palms creating a pleasant rasping sensation. "Do you really want me to stop?" he purred.

"No, but you're gonna have to," Bobby said, forcing himself to pull away. "The guys are going to be back soon, and unless you're ready to come out of the closet all the way, we're going to have to stop. Besides, the Professor's back now, and he's going to sense if we do anything when we're supposed to be on watch duty."

The pout on Beast's face would have frightened an army of men into sterility, but Bobby just thought it was cute. The animalistic-mutant was adorable in his needy horniness.

"We'll pick this up later," Bobby promised. "I'll even let you use the nipple clamps and the motion lotion."

"Ooh," Beast cooed.

"That's right. Now, let's get things back the way they're supposed to be," Bobby said. "I hate having to be the responsible one, so horny-Beast is going to have to go back in the bag, while adult-Beast is going to get some play time. Sorry."

Beast sighed. "All right." He reached out really fast and stroked Bobby's hard cock through his uniform pants before turning around to go back to his console where he was monitoring the mansion's security monitors.

Bobby barely had time to gasp before that touch was gone. He glared at the back of Beast's head for a moment before going back to his own work. It just wasn't fair. He hated being teased... especially when there was no follow through.

A tiny, secret smile tugged at Bobby's lips, though he would never have admitted to it. He was mad, dammit, filled with frustrated arousal. He didn't think Beast was cute when he teased him. He didn't.

* * *

The Blackbird made a perfect ten-point landing in its secret underground hangar. Scott felt a thrill of pleasure at his flying skills even now.

"All right, folks, we're here," he called, unstrapping his harness. He stood up and stretched, his hands clasped together as he arched his arms over his head, making his shoulders and spine pop. He sighed in relief.

He wasn't getting any younger, and it seemed that with every mission, no matter how minor, he got more and more tense. Someday he figured his spine was going to lock as rigid as a steel bar and not want to release. Some little nothing assignment was going to completely ruin him forever.

"Yay, food!" Danielle crowed, practically pushing Logan out of her way so she could be the first one through the hatch and down the ramp.

"That girl," Storm said, shaking her head. Amusement sparkled in her eyes though. Danielle was one of those people that could find a bit of happiness in any situation, no matter how dire. She was a good person to have around, always keeping morale up with her dazzling brightness.

"Come on, out, out, before Danielle decides to empty the kitchen," Scott said, making shooing motions with his hands.

He was pleased to watch the backs of his teammates and their guest troop out the hatch. It filled him with a sense of pride that he was their field leader and that they actually listened to his commands.

Logan was the last one out and he paused by the hatch to look over his shoulder at Scott, giving him a toothy grin. "Hurry up, red. You and me have a date with a hot tub."

Scott shivered and nodded, a bit of smile curling his lips up at the corner. His cock was hard in his pants and he was definitely ready for a bit of downtime. And there was nothing he liked better on his time off than being Logan's love slave. It was about the only time in his life that he felt relaxed enough to let down his guard and let someone else call all the shots.

Right now, he needed some time spent in Logan's arms. Especially after receiving such a lascivious look. He felt like he was about to burst.


	6. Chapter Six

"Where are we going?" Kara asked Rogue.

The mutant gave her a shy smile. "The Professah, he wants to talk to ya. Don't worry, though, he talks to all the new people when they first come in."

"Great," Kara muttered. She hated the whole 'take me to your leader' routine and all the things that came after it. She didn't know how many times a seemingly peaceful group of people suddenly turned into a bunch of raving lunatics for no readily apparent reason after she'd met their leader. It just wasn't worth the drama.

Rogue led her through the white-white corridors to an elevator. "This'll take us upstairs to the rest o' the mansion."

"Sweet," Kara said, since it seemed as though something was expected of her.

"I know you're an alien, but... where are you from?" Rogue asked.

Kara shrugged. "I was born on Argo, a colonized moon of the planet Krypton. When the mother planet was destroyed, a chunk of Krypton struck Argo, knocking it off its axis." Kara had to stop for a moment, biting her lip hard to keep her pain on the inside where it belonged. "Everyone froze to death. I was the only survivor, and that only because my mother, Kala In-Ze, was a scientist experimenting in cryo-stasis technology.

"I was frozen when Superman came and let me out. He brought me to Earth to his adoptive parents who took me in as well. It was hard pretending to be human, but at least I'm alive. Now, though, things are different."

"What do ya mean? What happened?" Rogue asked.

Kara shook her head. "What always seems to happen when I find a bit of something good. I had to go back in time to save the world, and when everything was said and done, I couldn't go back forward because the timeline reset itself and I was already living in the future. So I had to go somewhere else."

"So you came here?" a voice said.

Kara jerked in surprise and whirled around. "What the..."

"Dammit Gambit, what are ya tryin' ta do?" Rogue demanded

"Don't mind me, cher. I was just comin' to use the elevator," Gambit said. "I didn't mean to be listening, but I couldn't help what I heard, you were talking so loud."

The elevator slipped open with a faint "Ding!" The three piled aboard. The elevator began moving upward.

Kara noticed that Rogue was careful not to get too close to Gambit, seeming to shrink in upon herself to keep even her sleeve from brushing against him.

For the first time, Kara thought about what Rogue had told her. The woman was never able to touch another person skin to skin. She had to always be aware of where her skin ended and the rest of the world began for fear that she would just accidentally brush against someone and hurt them. She had to live her whole life afraid that one wrong move would end with her killing someone.

Taking a deep breath, Kara reached out and grasped Rogue's gloved hand in her own, squeezing comfort into it.

Rogue gasped soundlessly, her eyes sliding sideways to rest against the side of Kara's expressionless face. Most people that knew about her mutation didn't want to touch her even when her skin was completely covered. Even when they did touch her, they were always afraid that one slip of the cloth protecting them would result in their entire lives being sucked out of them. Kara though... she truly wasn't afraid.

A small smile curled Rogue's lips as she looked up at the glowing numbers above the elevator door.

She didn't know what fate had brought Kara to her, but she was grateful. It was nice to be able to feel human for once.

* * *

Gambit had seen Kara take Rogue's hand and felt something curl tight in his chest.

From the first moment he'd seen her, he had known that Rogue was someone special, and his love for her had only grown as time went on. Even knowing that they would never be able to make love or even kiss, he had been unable to help his feelings for her.

The tragedy of knowing that he was never going to be able to be with the woman that he loved had eaten at him for years. He had tried to keep his feelings to himself, knowing that Rogue didn't need the added grief of knowing what he felt for her, but he was unable to change the fact that he loved her more with the passage of each day.

Now something new was developing, and he wasn't a part of it. He'd seen the looks Rogue had been giving Kara, and he'd seen the glance back. He had played this game before and he knew what was coming, and it was killing him.

As long as Rogue was untouchable by everyone, then he had been able to live with the knowledge that he could never have her. But if someone else felt the same way about her that he did, and their feelings were returned... even if things could never be consummated, that didn't make their love any less real.

Jealousy burned in his chest as he looked at the pretty blond girl. She had an inhuman kind of perfection, and he had to wonder if maybe beauty was a part of her mutation, like with Warren.

He had to wonder where she'd come from and how long she was going to stay for. He didn't want her to take any more of Rogue's heart than necessary.

He had heard that she was from the future, but that was about it. He wished he had come in earlier so he could have found out more about her. She was a definite mystery.

And she was quickly stealing his Rogue away from him, something he couldn't allow.

* * *

She could almost feel his glare trying to melt a hole through her back. It was kind of funny really, that he would see her as that much of a rival, but she really didn't have time for his drama.

This was a whole new world she was in and if she wanted to spend any length of time here she was going to have to learn how to fit in. And it looked like these people were going to be the ones that she would have to get to like her, including Gambit.

"Do you guys use your code names all the time, or is just because you don't know me?" she asked.

Rogue blushed a little. "Most of us end up wi' new names when we give up our old lives because our old friends and families just can't accept the fact that we're different. Mah name was Marie, but Ah'm more comfortable bein' known as Rogue. That name feels more lahk me than mah old one does."

"What about you, cher? I hear tell that you like to be called 'Supergirl,' what is the deal behind that?" Gambit asked, raising an eyebrow.

Kara shrugged. "It's all a part of the mystique. As long as I remain a figure of mystery, the bad guys don't know quite what to think about me, and that makes them more afraid of what I might possibly do. Personally, though, I've never been all that into the secret identity thing, but Clark was the one that came up with the rules and he was the original Super, which is why he got the 'man' and all Kon and I got were the 'boy' and 'girl.' It's so degrading, but what can we really do about it?"

"Hm," was all Gambit had time to say before the elevator came to a stop and the door slid silently open.

"Guess this is our stop," Kara said brightly, stepping out. "Bye!"

Grabbing Rogue hand, she strolled off down the hallway, leaving Gambit to stare after them.

.

The "Professor" was a bald guy in a wheelchair that introduced himself as Charles Xavier. Not quite on a par with Mr. Clean, but way up there on the bald-o-meter. Kara was just glad that he couldn't read her mind, because that would have really sucked.

She flashed him one of her brightest smiles and slid into the chair in front of his desk. "So, you're a professor, huh? And you run this school for extraordinary children? How's that going for ya?"

He folded his fingers before his chin and looked closely at her, his black winglike eyebrows coming together as a sharp "V" above the bridge of his nose. "Scott has told me how they met you. Thank you for saving the girls. I know that you did not need to step in when you did, which only makes your actions more heroic." He licked his lips. "Rogue has told me that you have nowhere else to be. How would you feel about staying here?"

Kara gave him a skeptical look. "You don't even know me. Why the hell would you invite me to stay in a school with a bunch of kids? I could be a mass murderer for all you know. What are you, mental?"

Xavier gave a quirky, mostly amused smile. "I am not, as you say, mental. I just like giving people the chance that they don't think they deserve for themselves. Looking at you, I think that you deserve a chance."

Kara shook her head. "Dude, I know that usually you can read peoples' minds and see their intentions, so you usually know the best way to handle them, but with me... You can't read my mind, so the only things you have to go on with me are my looks and my attitude, so I really don't know why you want to trust me. I know I'm pretty, but I'm not that pretty, and I know for a fact that I have a huge ass chip on my shoulder. I really don't think you should trust the lives of all your students on the impression I've made in the last, like, five minutes. That's the kind of thing a complete dumb ass would do."

Xavier looked so surprised that she had to fight to keep from laughing. "I don't think that anyone has ever called me a 'dumb ass' to my face before," he said.

She shrugged. "Guess there's a first time for everything, X-man, and this one's yours. Enjoy it."

She really wasn't too impressed with the guy. Just because he was telepathic, he seemed to automatically assume that he was better in some way than the people around him. She had more than her fair share of superpowers, but she never let herself believe that in the grand scheme of things her life meant more than the person standing next to her. Thinking like that was extremely uncool and she really didn't respect him for it.

"Scott told me what you did," he said, speaking slowly, as though she had the mind of a child... or a peanut. "I respect his opinion, and he suggested that I give you a chance. And meeting you, I feel as though you simply need a chance, and that our school is what you need. A place where you can find yourself and belong."

"Yeah, you're still cracked," she said, "but I'm not going to turn you down. I need someplace to sleep for the next couple of days, and I guess this place is as good as any. You just better hope that I'm not a complete crazy out for the destruction of Earth. And you better believe that my reality has its share of egomaniacal madmen bent on the end of everything."

"This world too has those kinds of people. But I am going to trust that you are not one of them, and that if you were one, you would not be so intent on warning me away from offering you this chance," Xavier said.

"Whatever."

She knew that she was being a bit of a jerk, but she had set aside her goody-goody identity when she said good-bye to the people she had learned to love as her own family. Her reality no longer existed, which meant she didn't have to act like the girl she used to be back before everything turned to shit for good and all.

In her best moments, she cursed Clark but knew that he had made the right choice for everyone and could understand that her pain was just collateral damage. In her worst moments, she cursed Clark for ever defrosting her and making her want to give life a second chance. If only he hadn't made her realize that there were other people out there... If only he hadn't made her want to go out and save humans... If only he hadn't made her give a damn...

Everything would be different and she wouldn't feel so empty inside now that she had failed in saving everything that she cared about.

She had lost her world and all its people twice now. There was no way that she was ever going to let herself be hurt like that again. She just wouldn't care, that was all. She simply refused to give a damn.

* * *

She certainly was very aggressive for such a pretty young girl.

It was rather disconcerting to know that she had at her fingertips the equivalent to the powers of his three strongest mutants, and he couldn't read her mind. She could be planning anything and he would never know because her mind was tightly sealed to his gifts.

She was more powerful than most of the mutants he knew, and if she decided to turn to the side of evil, there would be nothing he could do to stop her because his telepathy simply did not reach her. It was as though she simply wasn't there.

He had his worries that it wouldn't be safe to have her around his students, but sometimes he had to make the hard choices, and this was one of them. He figured that it was better to keep her close at hand where he could keep an eye on her rather than have her out there doing god knew what with no one to even know that they should try to stop her.

Sometimes he wished that he didn't care about the world and its peoples' so much. It would be so very much easier if he simply didn't care about any of the people around him, because then he wouldn't be disappointed and there would be no chance that bad things would blow up in his face when he least expected them to.


End file.
